


blow my mind

by totespoppunk



Category: Bridgerton (TV), Bridgerton Series - Julia Quinn
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Colin being a simp, F/M, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, tik tok AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:00:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29493972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/totespoppunk/pseuds/totespoppunk
Summary: “Shake your body, baby girl / make it go side to side,Earthquake, earthquake / whoa you blow my mind.”“Damn you’re blowing my mind,” a male voice says from behind her as the music peters out.Letting out a surprised squeak, Penelope turns on the spot. While she was dancing, Colin had apparently snuck up behind her in the kitchen doorway, with a bowl of cereal in hand. His dark features were further silhouetted by the fluorescent lights and he looked positively ravenous. He had been watching her, and she couldn’t help the delightful and mortified shiver that ran down her spine.And, she must have imagined it, but she swears his chocolate eyes had just flickered up from her bottom when she spun to face him.- or the Polin TikTok AU that no one asked for.
Relationships: Anthony Bridgerton/Kate Sheffield, Colin Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington, Daphne Bridgerton/Simon Basset
Comments: 43
Kudos: 230





	blow my mind

**Author's Note:**

> I just want to say a MAJOR THANK YOU to all of those who have been supporting this fic since I posted a snippet on Tumblr a few weeks ago. I am so grateful for your help and patience and I hope that this does it justice.
> 
> the current title "you blow my mind" is a working title, as this is a multi-chapter fic, so if you have any suggestions please shoot them my way!
> 
> I am so grateful for all of your love and support, and I hope you have a wonderful day <3

Penelope Featherington always thought she would live a quiet life. She would graduate high school, then college with her master’s degree in English and hopefully get a job at a magazine or publishing house to start off her post-graduate life. She even imagined that she would go back and maybe get her doctorate to teach at university if she pleased.

The redhead never dreamt that she would be seen; she always thought she would be shy, quiet Penelope Featherington, and that the only way people would hear her voice would be through her writing, which she didn’t mind in the slightest. Pen preferred having the control of her words on others, and hearing people’s reactions at a clever quip or a heartfelt comment made her heart soar. And she was okay with her quiet, anonymous life. However, the world decided otherwise.

It all changed when she was starting her senior year at her university and she downloaded a new app called Tik Tok that Eloise could not stop nattering about. (“They do these outrageous dances and dramatic POVs, Pen! It’s wretched, but I can’t look away!”)

Conveniently, she had also been looking for ways to promote her columns in the university’s student paper, and thought that promoting her work while sharing her personal experiences and adventures throughout her upper education would be an enjoyable way to pass the time.

Penelope had been posting for a few months, just silly things: convincing Eloise to learn dances with her, while even doing a few duets to the point-of-view storylines that piqued her interest.

Posting was all in good fun. Until one of her videos went viral.

And of course, it involved one Colin Bridgerton.

He had just moved back to London after months travelling in the Mediterranian, and since he didn’t want to be hounded by his mother about settling down, finding a girlfriend and starting his career, he chose to stay in the apartment that Eloise and Pen shared instead.

Initially, Eloise tried to shove him off to another Bridgerton sibling, but as her best friend, Penelope could tell that the brunette was actually excited to have her brother back for longer than a fortnight. He slept on the pullout couch and when he offered to help pay for rent and groceries, that sold the duo.

The third-eldest Bridgerton had only been living with them for a handful of days when Penelope had (stupidly) begged Eloise to learn a rather promiscuous dance with her. It had been all over her For-You Page for days, and it looked so exciting that the redhead hadn’t even thought about Colin being in the other room.

The girls had set up her tripod in their tiny living room, with the kitchen light spilling on them in the background. It was a rather short dance, so they had been practicing, saving drafts and pushing themselves harder, laughing all the while as they looked back on their footage.

After several tries and failures, Eloise was tapped out. “It’s been fun.” she chuckled, wiping at her sweaty brow, “but I’m going to shower. Let me know when you post the best one so I can hype you up before all of your groupies!”

Pen waved her friend off with a laugh. This silly little app had made her feel more confident than ever before, as people helped her better not only her writing with critiques on her column, but also her self-esteem. After months of playing around with the app and the different dances and challenges, she had begun consistently gaining followers, but it wasn’t as big a following as Eloise made it out to be.

In the end, it was just for fun.

“You could be my new thang.” The redhead offers a cute smile and throws up a peace sign in the direction of her phone before going into the choreography, pushing harder than she had the last few tries she’d done solo.

“Shake your body, baby girl / make it go side to side,  
Earthquake, earthquake / whoa you blow my mind.”

“Bloody hell, you’re definitely blowing my mind.” a male voice says from behind her as the music peters out.

Letting out a surprised squeak, Penelope turns on the spot. While she was dancing, Colin had apparently snuck up behind her in the kitchen doorway, with a bowl of cereal in hand. His dark features were further silhouetted by the fluorescent lights and he looked positively ravenous. He had been watching her, and she couldn’t help the delightful and mortified shiver that ran down her spine.

And, she must have imagined it, but she swears his chocolate eyes had just flickered up from her bottom when she spun to face him. Her peaches-and-cream skin glowed red in embarrassment.

At his raised eyebrow, she realized she had been staring at him for far too long, “I beg your pardon?’

“I’m just saying,” his lips curled into a slight smirk, “that you looked good.”

Penelope knew she could get lost in his deep gaze if she afforded herself the pleasure, so she turned to face the camera and paused. The dance had been so short that the recording was still rolling, so she tapped the red button and shut the app immediately. “Thanks,” she whispered shortly as she began folding up the legs of the small tripod to make a hasty escape when she felt the tension in the room change.

“You don’t have to stop on my account, Pen,” his voice had dropped as he approached her side. His eyes had turned apologetic and he dipped his head to search her gaze. He was a full foot taller than her, and it would have been funny if she hadn’t felt so embarrassed.

“I was headed to bed anyway,” she tells him off-handedly, turning her back on him. She squeezed her fingers around the rubber legs of the tripod, hard in her fist.

Penelope suddenly felt like she was sent back to her middle school years, where she longed for boys to look at her without disgust, or hearing the catty comments girls made in the locker room, picking her apart until she was broken pieces on the floor.

She had come a long way since then, though; she’d held onto the friends that she loved and who loved her right back, and while she hadn’t found a boy that she had liked enough to date, she’d fallen in love with herself. She looked upon her curves lovingly rather than with the hate her mother had instilled within her body, and had stopped holding herself back from the things that she wanted. She was happy, confident, and more than enough.

“Pen,” Colin suddenly saw the war in her face, the pain and the history there. He couldn’t help but reach out and gently touch her arm, “I wasn’t lying when I said you looked amazing.” Regret tinged his words; he never wanted her to think he was mocking her like those shitty bullies did when they were younger. He actually thought she was amazing, more than even.  
“It’s alright,” she shook her head, snapping out of her reverie. “Goodnight, Colin.”

The brunette boy looked like he wanted to say more, but she had already spun on her foot and left the living room before he could utter another word.

* * *

It was only when she was crawling into bed, after showering, washing her face and brushing her teeth, that she remembered the video. Penelope had spent so long learning the dance, teaching it to Eloise, and drafting the videos that she didn’t want it to go to waste.

She watched over twenty drafts that she and El had made, sometimes goofing off and others trying too hard, and deleted the ones that were totally useless. But she wasn’t sold on posting any of them; they were more little anecdotes of her friendship with Eloise that she’d rather keep close then share with the world. So she kept them in the drafts, then moved onto the ones she made by herself.

Penelope watched her solo dances, one-by-one, but she didn’t see anything that had remarkably caught her attention, so she plugged her phone in rather grudgingly before turning off her lamp and trying to fall into a dreamless sleep.

It was only as she was slipping into slumber that she let herself think of dark chocolate eyes and the words she’d been avoiding since she left the living room. Bloody hell, you’re definitely blowing my mind.

* * *

“Pen! Colin! You’re famous!”

The former rolled over, wincing at the sunlight streaming in through the window as the shriek of her best friend reverberated from down the hall. A few seconds later, she heard her door fling open and hit the wall, nearly leaving a hole in the plaster as Eloise Bridgerton practically toppled onto her comforter.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Penelope ground out, shoving her head under a pillow in order to muffle her friend’s excited chatter, “I didn’t even post anything last night-”

At this, the brunette stilled. Briefly. “Yes, you did?”

“What do you-”

“Could you quiet down already?” Colin grumbled from the hall, wiping the sleep from his eyes, “is it safe to come in?”

“The door is open, you idiot.” Eloise snapped back, but her eyes had gone almost gleeful as she turned back to her redheaded friend, lifting the pillow from her face “Did you really not know?”

“Not know what, Eloise?” Penelope sighed, exhausted and still slightly disoriented from her surprise wake-up call. In the next second, her best friend’s iPhone was shoved under her nose, and she couldn’t help the little gasp that left her mouth.

It was the last video she had made the night before. The one that Colin had interrupted. The one she hadn’t watched before falling asleep. The one she had apparently clicked to POST instead of to save in her DRAFTS in her haste to get away from Colin.

Oh, bloody hell.

“Oh, bloody hell,” she reiterated, sitting up abruptly as the video auto-looped. There she was, being fun and flirty with the camera, breaking into the dance, and then Colin came in with the punchline. She couldn’t lie; she looked happy and stunning, in her cute muted mint-green cropped sweater and high-waisted leggings, and her bright smile.

She watched as it looped again, and this time she saw Colin step into frame. He had walked in when she started the dice-roll at the beginning of the dance, stopping short in the doorway as his eyes roved over her form as she moved before flitting briefly to the camera. His gorgeous smile widened, and then he dropped the innuendo before the video cut out.

Pen’s eyes flitted to the right side of the screen and her mouth dropped open at the sight. 88.9k likes. 17.2k comments. “You’re kidding.”

“Look at the comments,” El tittered, and Penelope looked up to find a positive gleam of mischief in her eye, and Pen felt her gut fill with dread as she followed the order.

_**Selena_Smythe_Smith:** Look at the way he looks at her - heart eyes._  
_**BerbrookeBoi:** YES QUEEN_  
_**Montague-32:** Omg they’re perfect <3_

Countless comments filled the page, and her heart burst both lovingly and brokenly as she continued to read. And, of course, her best friend had to add fuel to the fire:

_**Eloise_B:** Just kiss already, you fucking dorks._

“Comments on what?” Colin said with interest as he finally crossed into the room, hand reaching out for the phone. Pen’s eyes snapped up to his, her soft complexion going white as the sheets she was sprawled on.

“Nothing,” she said quickly at the same time Eloise replied, “The Tik Tok that Pen posted last night. It features you, dear brother.”

The redhead could only watch with mortification and fear as her best friend plucked the mobile from her clenched fingers and handed it to Colin. His eyes scanned the video, brows raising and his lips curving back down to a flat line.

“Colin, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to-” Penelope choked on her breath as the video looped, her heart beating out of her chest. She knew she was on the verge of a panic attack, and she needed to be away from the Bridgertons as quickly as possible. She almost tripped out from under her covers before crossing to the door and out without a single thought. She needed fresh air before she passed out.

Penelope could hear the siblings calling out behind her as she ran through the apartment, stuffing her feet into a pair of trainers by the door and pulling a coat from the hook before wrenching the front door open and out into the cold November air.

It was only when she crossed Grosvenor Square that she realized the jacket she’d grabbed was one of Colin’s university hoodies. Once she was aware, she contemplated not putting it on at all, but when her teeth chattered uncomfortably, she begrudgingly shoved her head and arms through the gray cotton and submerged herself in the spicy vanilla warmth of his cologne.

_She had been so careful, dammit._

* * *

Penelope Featherington had had a crush on Colin Bridgerton for as long as she could remember. Since she made friends with Eloise in primary school, the redhead had salivated after the most charming Bridgerton brother, yearning and savoring the moments he rested his eyes on her for longer than a second. It was only in high school when the Incident occurred that she had taken off her rose-colored glasses.

She had been a freshman in high school, while he had gone off to start his studies at Oxford. It was winter break, and all of the Bridgertons had returned home for the Christmas holidays, and in turn, that meant that Penelope was also invited as an honorary member of the family. Violet knew of the redhead’s rocky homelife, and was always open to saving an extra place at the dinner table for her when times were tough. At that time especially, her unsavory relationship with her family had boiled over due to her father gambling away all of her college fund, so it had seemed that she was becoming a staple in the Bridgerton home.

They had all just sat down to Christmas Eve dinner, and the young-adult Bridgertons were regaling their college stories and sipping on wine when the concept of relationships were brought up. Anthony had mentioned a girl he’d been seeing off and on named Kate; he was hoping to have over to ring in the New Year, if Violet would allow. Benedict had been too focused on his arts showcase to care about finding a significant other, but Colin had gone tight-lipped, sipping his beer heavily.

It wasn’t until later, of course, when Pen was helping put the dishes away, that she caught sight of the Bridgerton boys crowded around the dining table, heads bent together.

“What has your panties in a bunch, dear brother?” Benedict asked with faux-concern as he looked to the youngest of the trio.

Colin’s lips thinned considerable as he sipped at a new beer. “If Mama brings up me asking out Penelope Featherington one more time, I will leave this house and never come back.”

“It’s that bad?” Anthony asked, raising an eyebrow as he tipped his own drink back. “I remember mama pestering me before Kate, but never that harshly.”

“She just can’t get it through her head that I will never have feelings for, let alone marry, Penelope Featherington.”

The sound of glass shattering made the men look up, and the color drained from Colin’s face as he locked eyes on the redhead in question. “Oh.”

Penelope was standing just in the kitchen doorway, and she was frozen too, staring back at them briefly, before scooping down to take in the mess of the fine china plate that had slipped from her fingers. Fiery red tendrils fell over her face as she scrambled to pick up the pieces.

“Penelope-” Colin tried to step forward, but Benedict held the back of his shirt in a vice grip. His unspoken words were clear: You’ve done enough, now shut it.

“I apologize,” she stated, ignoring his remark, “How clumsy of me.” Her voice was so devoid of emotion, that if one weren’t paying close attention, they would not see her hands trembling around the shards of glass in between her fingers.

Breaking from his stupor, Anthony stepped forward wordlessly, and stooped to her level, unclenching her hands from around the glass crystals. Her fingers and palms were tinged with cuts and little patches of blood. “Come along,” he stated softly for only her to hear, “let’s get you cleaned up.”

After that, Benedict must have yanked Colin from the room, as Anthony led her to the kitchen and surveyed her injuries. The eldest brother tried to make apologies, but Penelope didn’t utter a word other than to thank him for his hospitality before turning to leave.

“Oi, Pen!” Eloise had called from the sitting room as the redheaded non-Bridgerton girl passed through the entry hall. The whole family was residing in the room, getting ready to each open a single gift before the big celebration the next day, as per tradition. “Come pick your gift next!”

The girl in question paused, eyes careful as she looked over all of the hopeful faces that stared back at her. She avoided the back corner where the third-eldest Bridgerton sat with Benedict, and she scanned the room one last time, trying not to cry as she pasted on a fake smile. “I think I am actually going to return to my family for the night, but thank you.”

She pointedly ignored the cries of outrage from Eloise and the dismay of the others, before her eyes landed on Violet who was simply surveying her with an unexplainable look in her gaze.

Before she could move, the Bridgerton matriarch had stood and crossed in front of her, shielding her from the rest of the room and gently guiding her into the hall. As the parlor door closed on the rest of the family, Penelope realized that Anthony had been behind her the whole time, as she had almost tripped over his foot in her haste.

His mother went to speak, but the eldest Bridgerton sibling spoke before she could utter a word: “Pen, he didn’t mean it.”

“He didn’t mean to be caught,” The redhead smiled ruefully before surveying two members of the family that she had come to love and cherish. She’d never thought she’d lose them, “but it is alright.”

Violet looked from both of them, perplexed, before Penelope turned her head on, “Thank you for always being hospitable towards me, Mrs. Bridgerton. I will forever be grateful for your kindness.”

“If this is a goodbye, Penelope Featherington, I do not want to hear it,” the Bridgerton matriarch stated, cutting her off. “You are a part of this family, whether you like it or not.”

The redhead couldn’t help but smile even as the tears pricked her eyelids. Oh she would miss her-

“Pen!” The trio turned to see Colin approaching from the opposite end of the hall. He must have run through the dining room and kitchen to get to them, since Violet had been blocking the parlor door. Benedict was right on his heels, looking murderous. “Listen, I-”he stopped short at the twin glares from his mother and eldest brother. Meanwhile, the redhead in question refused to look at him as she turned to get her coat.

As she shuffled her arms into the sleeves, she turned to Violet and whispered, “Thank you for everything.”And she slipped out the front door.

Pen had spent little time at the Bridgertons over those next few months, much to the family’s dismay, but she had decided it was for the best. In order for her to get over him, she would have to make sacrifices, and she knew that this would save her pain in the long run from getting her hopes any higher than they were before.

So Penelope kept her distance, corresponding with Eloise over text and Facetime calls, sending well-wishes to the family through the phone screen. Sometimes, she would pop by, but only if she knew for certain that a certain brunette wasn’t around. The redhead knew she was being catty, but at this point, if she could go without seeing Colin, she would.

* * *

Five months later, Colin left for Greece for the first time. He’d just graduated from Oxford and wanted to visit the places he’d only studied through pictures in his textbooks, so he took off with a lump of his trust fund money and dreams bigger than London fifty times over. And that was conveniently the same time Pen began spending her time at Bridgerton House again.

Pen knew by the knowing looks from the matriarch that she wasn’t as discreet as she hoped, but they never spoke of it. And when he came home, she was gone again.

* * *

This went on until Pen and Eloise graduated high school, when Colin brought Marina home for the first time. It had sunk in at that point that the brunette would never truly be hers, but for the first time in her life, Penelope was okay with it. She was moving on to do bigger and better things, and she was not going to let a stupid boy - let alone her best friend’s brother - hold her back.

So she went off to school and got an apartment with her best friend, and they did their school work, drank wine while they watched the Bachelor, and made the best of their college years, and suddenly Pen’s heart hurt less and less. And even when Colin and Marina broke things off during the winter break of her junior year, she didn’t get that hopeful flutter in her chest. (Well, it lessened, at least.) Colin was Colin and she was Penelope, and they would never be together. It was only a fact.

So when the third-eldest Bridgerton had asked to reside in their quarters, Penelope had accepted it in a warm manner. Their relationship had been broken and repaired enough that she would not prevent her best friend from having her brother back before he chose to run off to some other foreign country. Even if she was still heartbroken, she never wanted to hurt Eloise.

When he moved in, it was like a puzzle fitting itself into place. The trio’s flatmate-ship had made Penelope look forward to when coming home from class or work. She and El would do as they always had, and Colin would pop in with witty barbs and jokes that made them laugh until wine came out of their noses.

It was so great. And she ruined it, all because she clicked the wrong button.

In the midst of her wallowing, her phone had been blowing up with notifications. The redhead was just about to turn her phone off when she saw a name jump to the top of her notifications that made her eyes almost bug out of her head and her heart drop to her stomach.

_**colin-bridgerton-official:** I mean, I was only stating facts -wide eyes emoji-_

**Author's Note:**

> more to come! let me know what you think!
> 
> find me on tumblr @totespoppunk


End file.
